Christopher Hill is a lone stand out in the Bush Administration's line up of political flunkies who are over their heads on the world and domestic stage.
An actual diplomat, who knows the region, speaks the language (!) and recognizes the cultural nuances diplomacy requires.
from his Wikipedia biography snapshot:DiplomacyHill joined the State Department in 1977. <4> Hill served as secretary for economic affairs at the US Embassy in Seoul from 1983 to 1985. When he returned to Korea in 2004 as US Ambassador he began by saying "I was here for three years in the 1980s, one has to be a little careful about drawing on too much experience from so long ago. So, even though I'll certainly draw on my experience from the 1980s, I think I also need to do an awful lot of listening to people to understand what has been going on lately."<4>
Hill served as the ambassador to Macedonia from 1996 to 1999, Special Envoy to Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, ambassador to Poland from 2000 to 2004, and ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2004 to 2005 before being appointed as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.<3> While on a fellowship with the American Political Science Association, Hill served as a member of the staff of Congressman Stephen Solarz.<3> While working on Balkan issues, Hill worked closely with Richard Holbrooke, serving as his deputy at the Dayton Peace Talks in 1995. Holbrooke described Hill as "brilliant, fearless and argumentative" in his book on the Dayton negotiations and said that Hill manages to be both "very cool and very passionate." The combination, Holbrooke said, enhances Hill's "extremely good negotiating skills."<2>
In November 2006 President George W. Bush nominated Hill for the grade of career minister, the second-highest rank for career diplomats. The elite title is one step below career ambassador.<5>
Negotiations with North KoreaOn February 14, 2005, Hill was named as the Head of the U.S. delegation to the six-party talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis.<3>
In the first visit to North Korea by a senior American official in over five years, Hill flew into Pyongyang on June 21, 2007 for a two day visit where he was warmly greeted by Ri Gun, the North’s deputy nuclear negotiator at the airport. “We want to get the six-party process moving,” Mr. Hill said. “We hope that we can make up for some of the time that we lost this spring, and so I’m looking forward to good discussions about that.” The visit had been organized in secrecy. Hill had been visiting Tokyo and flew to South Korea and then on to Pyongyang on a small jet. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed regional allies Japan and South Korea just before Hill's departure from Tokyo. <6>
On July 14, 2007 North Korea informed Hill that they had shut down the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and admitted an interantional inspection team. Hill cautioned that the shutdown was “just the first step.” Verifying the declaration will be difficult, because for now the inspectors are limited to the Yongbyon complex.<7>
On September 3, 2007 the New York Times reported that Hill met in Geneva for two days of one-on-one negotiations with Kim Kye-gwan, who heads the North Korean negotiating team, and that North Korea had agreed to disable its main nuclear fuel production plant by the end of 2007 and to account for all of its nuclear programs to international monitors. North Korea had also agreed to turn off its main nuclear reactor this summer. "One thing that we agreed on is that the D.P.R.K. will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007," Hill told reporters.<8>
Reputation in East AsiaIn Seoul, Hill had one of the happiest moments in his life because his beloved Boston Red Sox defeated their much-hated rival New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series and won the World Series in 2004. One of the subjects Hill spoke about with his South Korean diplomatic counterparts upon his arrival in Seoul as the new U.S. ambassador was the Red Sox' 2003 closing pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim. <9>
Hill's mention of Kim was an early indication that the new U.S. ambassador to Seoul would set a new precedent by closely approaching to South Korea's contemporary culture and society. He frequently had dialogues with South Koreans at universities, cyber chat rooms, and sometimes places that are considered hotbeds of anti-U.S. sentiments. He was the first U.S. ambassador to pay respects at Gwangju's Mangwoldong May 18 National Cemetary for thousands of civilians who stood up for democracy and were massacred by the then-military government in May 1980. Many South Koreans suspected that the U.S. government allowed the attack, and no senior U.S. official had ever visited Mangwoldong before. According to Tami Overby, a senior official with the American Chamber of Commerce in South Korea, Hill served the shortest term in her 18 years of life in Seoul but had the most impact.<2>
Although Hill is not well known in the United States, he has become a celebrity also in China as chief envoy in talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Part of the reason is that during negotiations Hill speaks every morning and evening to the media and has an easygoing manner, while his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan, gives only occasional media access. Hill has also won over the media in Japan. After the Boston Red Sox signed pitching star Daisuke Matsuzaka from the Seibu Lions, Hill turned up for meetings in Tokyo wearing a Seibu Lions baseball cap.<10>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_R._Hill
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